Luis Rubio
During her transition period, the president-elect was extremely cautious about how she would exercise power, especially given the large majorities with which Morena controls Congress. She was emphatic in protecting the rights of minorities. However, once in office, that change of tone disappeared from the map. Harmony disappeared, being replaced by renewed militancy. No country can prosper when its population, including the counterweight mechanisms that are essential for the stability and functionality of any society, are constantly under siege, denigrated and disqualified. The question is how, in the context of a government capable of launching acts of authority with no counterweights, is it that the government pretends to achieve both prosperity and harmony.
In his recent book entitled Age of Revolutions,* Fareed Zakaria makes an interesting distinction in the way that leaders over the last four hundred years commandeered relevant processes of change and analyzes which were more successful and why. Revolutions, states the author, follow a common pattern: technological or economic changes of great magnitude unleash a change in the population’s identity (how people understand themselves), leading them to demand a new type of political response. What distinguishes leaders under these circumstances is the way in which they manage the situation, because that determines whether the revolution will end up improving the quality of life of the population involved or whether it will unleash great chaos, violence and stagnation. As an example, the author contrasts the so-called “Glorious Revolution” in the United Kingdom in 1688 (in which the monarchy was deposed and parliament began to acquire relevance), with the “Reign of Terror” and the House of Bonaparte dynasty in France. In the former case the leaders procured the support of the populace and developed gradual solutions that respected citizen rights, thus securing legitimacy among the middle classes. In the French case, the politicians who conceived of themselves as enlightened, intended to force a rapid change in a very traditional and marginally developed nation, with predictable results.
The lesson to be learned is relevant because it suggests that an electoral triumph is not sufficient to guarantee the success of the processes of change that the government emanated from an election unfurls. That is, the formal majorities are not enough: similar in importance, if not even more so, is involving the populace (this distinct from trying to manipulate it) and building the scaffold of supports that permit not only approving the laws, but also making them work. It is sufficient to take a glance backward two or three decades to appreciate the significance of this lesson effected by Zakaria’s book: many of the reforms intended or undertaken by recent Mexican administrations were approved but were at the end of the day dysfunctional or unviable in that they were not socialized nor did they in the last analysis enjoy legitimacy, thus popular recognition.
Still more important for the government is the complexity of the Morena Party in these matters, where there is the prominence of Jacobin-like extremists, radical personages who are decided on and dedicated to advancing extreme causes, the product of their history and the purity of their ideology, but not representative of or desirable for the population, including of course many of whom voted for today’s President. The how, says Zakaria, makes an enormous difference in the long term. The propensity of the “pampered elites” in aspiring to impose sudden radical changes is frequent in history, but rarely culminates in success and these changes are nearly always destructive and violent. Nothing like cultivating popular support for substantive changes liable to improve the quality of life, raise productivity and economic growth. The how is yet as important or more than the what.
Radical militants within the governing party harbor a revolutionary zeal and a natural tendency toward imposed solutions, which would inevitably clash with diverse elements of the agenda of the government itself, starting with the removal of obstacles to the growth of the economy. The way the government decides to promote growth is likewise key: although the mantra is that the government should “marshal” the economic agents, the way to make the economy grow is through creating conditions that attract private investment. There’s no alternative to this.
When a government invests in infrastructure (or decides where it should be installed), it is by that sole act deciding on and incentivizing private investment. But much more important than physical infrastructure, that in the same fashion can be financed through private investment, Mexico faces massive deficits in health and educational matters, two indispensable conditions, first for the healthy development of the populace, but also fundamental for adding value to the productive process, thus elevating the income potential of those laboring therein. The formality, that is, the way things are presented and managed, matters as much in the political world as in all the others.
“Institutions and laws, wrote Lord Acton, have their roots not in the ingenuity of statesmen, but as much as possible in the opinion of the people.” Much better to bring everybody on board towards progress than attempt to impose, thus to paralyze.
*Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present
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